If you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about and you are under the legal age in your country, I suggest you don't Google this game.School Days is very NSFW

Lets hope I'm not breaking any rule with this topic but hey!

School Days is out and in English!

This is pretty amazing considering it was a joint effort between Jast USA and Sekai Project which as a fan translation group translated the entire thing.0verflow, the Japanese maker also gave their OK and support.

It's good to see that sometimes people can make good judgment call as such as supporting a fan project to localize games that most of the time had no hope of ever being localized (akin to those 2 Ys games with similar situations).

School Days is an average visual novel. It's just so well known because of the horrendous stuff that happens. There are so many great VNs out there that seem to be overlooked for translation for reasons I do not understand.

Also, fan groups have been working with JP companies more recently. NoNameLosers are working with minori to release ef in English, for example.

Yggdrasil, I know you think that's funny and stuff (and to be honest, I can get a few chuckles out of that myself provided I've had a few beers) but try not to use image macros or whatever containing that word too much, as it can make some people uncomfortable. Thanks.

School Days is mostly just famous for its numerous violent bad ends. Otherwise it's pretty unremarkable.

Still, there have actually been more and more VNs being localized lately. Not just from Jast, but MangaGamer has been doing a lot. All on the PC, of course, which means a lot (but not all) of them are eroge. I'm actually pretty psyched about Ef getting localized.

Of course a lot of high-profile companies like 5pb have yet to get on board with English VN releases...

I remember when the anime was being aired in Japan some people were saying how realistic the whole story was. I'm not even kidding.

Also, isn't there like a bunch of games of this series? A couple of months ago I read that Shiny Days was the last game before the studio that develop these things closed. They only worked on this series it seems.

School Days is mostly just famous for its numerous violent bad ends. Otherwise it's pretty unremarkable.

Still, there have actually been more and more VNs being localized lately. Not just from Jast, but MangaGamer has been doing a lot. All on the PC, of course, which means a lot (but not all) of them are eroge. I'm actually pretty psyched about Ef getting localized.

Of course a lot of high-profile companies like 5pb have yet to get on board with English VN releases...

It's not so much the bad ends as it is the effect of having people randomly come up to the series thinking its just another boring ass VN and then "HOLY SHIT! WTF!?! WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT PROTAGONIST!?!?! DON'T YOU SEE THAT THIS WILL ONLY END BADLY!!!!! *nice boat* FUUUUUUUU---".

But otherwise its basically just another generic VN that actually manages to reach the harem genre's logical conclusion for once.

well, I think it's pretty good for what it is. Most of the eroges translated to English so far are sex romps where by the end of the game you've managed to cover almost every fetish out there and ejaculated ocean's worth on the ladies, but School Days is surprisingly tasteful in that regard: there's not that many sex scenes and the few that are...are well, normal.

It's more of an interactive anime than a novel (a very budget anime though) and writing isn't that sharp, but really, show me an eroge visual novel (or a non-erotic high school romance VN)that rises above your average young adult novel in the writing department? Of course one can not really go all Shakespeare in a story about teenage romance, but this is definitely an aspect of visual novels that is generally unconvincing. School Days is not that great in this regard either, but it's not bad either.

The game centers mainly around two girls and there's not much choice with any of the others, so it's not really a dating sim per se. Instead, you're pretty much forced to have something with one of the girls either way, even if you have set your eyes on somebody else. I think those who haven't seen the anime don't feel so restricted since they haven't been exposed to some f*cked up sh*t that would make them run away from a particular character.

Anyway, as I said, there's two characters, but one of them is an insane nutjob and the other is a really down to earth girl, judging from a few different endings and the anime. Actually, the latter is one of the more likeable anime girl characters I've seen, and considering the average female in the medium that's a huge frickin' compliment.

Basically an interactive budget anime with choices to be made in certain sections featuring pretty tasteful sex scenes with relationships that can be either turn out pretty sweet if a bit tense at points or concluding in somebody meeting a violent end.

I really don't like eroges. I liked that about Umineko. It had horrific violence, sure, but nothing eroge-oriented.

Hopefully someone localizes that next.

I think it depends how it's handled. When (and that's the usual case) it's just an excuse to shoehorn some sort of narrative to a gallery of sex fetishes, it sucks. However I do think there's nothing wrong with it when it's tasteful. After all, sex is awesome and natural, so I think it actually adds to the believability of the relationships(as in School Days...well, not always, BUT mostly yes).